The State Of The Global Village

We are in the anteroom,

In a castle, we knew as world,

Playing out perhaps the last act

Of a drama; men, women, children

All at once engaged 

As the sleepwalking grouch, 

Cleaning the dirty hands;

Caregivers are failing,

So are the perfumes of Arabia

To wash the scarlet guilt away. 

What a spell has fallen upon us,

That we are outwitted

By an invisible, 

So-far-invincible virus.

The historian inside

Trembles to paint

The grim picture in words,

Of how an imperceptible petite germ

Failing the intelligence

Of the unprepared 

Disabled, challenged world

That has successfully cracked 

Into the outer space.

News, tracking the countless

Figures falling like flies,

As though keeping the scores

Of a horrendous Olympic game,

Every continent, losing lives,

Liquidating businesses;

Putting work to an abysmal 

Standstill; lockdown, the sole remedy

To this pandemic peril,

Confinement, the only prescription

Waiting for the underestimated 

Enemy to perish. Everyone is jobless 

Except for the relentless, indefatigable, 

Resilient doctors and nurses.

The realization that too much greed

Is of no use, other than the futile

The effort of getting rid of the guilt;

Globalization was mere to 

Grow and develop, uniting the world

Was never the business, a concern

It ignored the decay, the screech 

Of the tonsured world; deglobalization 

That the world’s facing now

It could finally unite humans with humans.

On witnessing the countless procession of the hearse,

Perhaps the stage is tired of wars; 

Disunities, differences might wither from within,

Soul-searching might very well begin;

A new way of thinking might emerge

Old and failed methods, purged;

The global citizenry will perhaps concur to win;

World, a waiting room, tired of losing,

Now, in the last act, eagerly washing 

Its hands of all the erstwhile, countless sins.